Courage to reform. Finally!

Sweeping health care reform is on the way and I'm not sure what to feel.  I'm happy for the change, which is needed, but I'm pretty disappointed in our elected officials in how they went about bringing the change.  We have seen Washington DC at it's worst these past several months leading up to last night's vote.

Greatest disappointment are the assholes of the Republican party.  Poor leadership from the likes of McConnel, Cantor and Bohner and their "no compromise" strategy is what failed the American people.  Don't get me wrong — health care reform was necessary and in the end, the people of this country have benefited but the GOP failed us by not stepping up to the plate to play ball.  Sitting on the sidelines with arms crossed, refusing to play because a Democrat administration brought forth the effort was stupid — quite childlike when you think about it — and that is what failed the people.  We didn't get any real debate which would have formed much tighter legislation.  Instead we got more fear mongering — lest we forget Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, et al and the 'death panel' scares (assholes, all of them) — and no exchange of ideas.  Until the last 30 days of course.  The irony is that many of those ideas, 200 or so, made it into the bill, so this really IS bipartisan thinking.  But of course due to lack of foresight and poor leadership, the GOP will get no credit.

So this means now that over 30 million more of our brothers and sisters will have health care coverage.  It means that I won't have to stay in a sucky job that I hate only because it offers health care for me and my family — FREE TO MOVE AROUND IF I CHOOSE, OR MAYBE I WILL START MY OWN BUSINESS.  It means that my son, who just had a valve in his heart replaced last July, won't have to go through life wondering what will happen to him next time he needs attention in the event his folks won't be around to take care of matters.  It means that 40,000 of my brothers and sisters won't have to die each year in ours, the strongest nation on earth, just because they couldn't get needed health care. 

We have told the entire world that the USA will no longer toil low on the list of nations that have social infrastructure for its people, we won't fall behind countries like India and Pakistan when it comes to mortality rate due to health care access — and that we don't care if wealthy, angry white people are happy with their health care and don't want to be their brother's keeper.  And yes, we have indeed told the entire world that even though the special interests own Washington, and even though the scores of elected officials (and their families) in Washington that have the best insurance and no clue what we common folk go through when it comes to dealing with health care needs, the USA has the common sense to do what so many other great countries figured out some time ago: that the fate of a country is a function of the health and well being of its people.

This about a people that came together to make sure that all members of its community are taken care of.  Black, white, red or yellow; Jew, Christian, Muslim or Agnostic.  It's what we do.